ITS World, Vienna, 25 October 2012 – TomTom presented the results of a benchmark study with the National Data Warehouse for Traffic Information (NDW) from the Netherlands at the annual ITS World Congress in Vienna. In the study, Dutch government body NDW and TomTom compared historical travel time data. The results demonstrate that TomTom and NDW data and technologies help government in analysing major traffic trends and identifying key bottlenecks.

TomTom’s travel time data is collected from drivers who choose to anonymously share their journey information out of TomTom’s more than 70 million customers. The key advantage of this GPS data, known as Floating Car Data, is that it is not limited to a fixed location or planned periods of observation. Instead, TomTom is able to monitor a car’s whole journey, whenever it’s out on the road.

NDW’s data collection methods are highly suitable for analysing a specific area of the road, and detecting changes that occur minute by minute. NDW monitors the road network by way of a variety of roadside systems.

“It’s great to have independent verifications that confirm the quality of our Floating Car Data”, says Ralf-Peter Schäffer, Head of TomTom Traffic Product Unit. “The research proves that our data has real value for analysis and policy making.”

“The aim of this study was to test the quality and potential uses of the different data sources available, so we can find the best methods for traffic analysis and management”, says Marja van Strien, Director of NDW. “We know that by combining NDW data with TomTom’s travel time information, we get traffic information that is of a higher quality and covers more of the road network. There is a clear benefit to collaborating in the future.”

The study also shows that TomTom data can be useful in doing plausibility checks of travel times and detecting failures in the roadside equipment.

NDW also performs benchmark studies with other traffic information sourcing companies. These studies are conducted to determine the quality and possible uses of several other types of available data sources.

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